Yesterday, I went over why the Associated Press article on Harry Reid and the nonsensical reaction by certain partisans was completely off the mark. I also said that it was my personal opinion that Reid probably should have paid for the tickets to eliminate the appearance of impropriety, even though it appeared that nothing untoward had occured. Well, Paul Kiel at TPM Muckraker and the Las Vegas Review Journal reinforce my first argument while showing that my personal opinion was wrong. You see, it would have been against the law for Reid to have paid for the tickets because they weren’t tickets:

But it turns out that it would have been illegal for Reid to reimburse the commission for the seats. That’s because these weren’t actually tickets – they were credentials with no face value given to V.I.P.’s. And according to the boxing promoter who awarded those credentials to Reid, it is illegal for the commission to accept payment for them. Despite that, McCain insisted on paying, and so the commission simply gave his check (written for a seemingly arbitrary amount) to a charity since it couldn’t accept it.

What’s more, that same promoter says that in other cases where Reid and McCain received tickets that could be reimbursed, Reid paid. That’s a key fact which, if true, was left out of Solomon’s article.

So, Reid didn’t break the law and that is a story? Soon we will be seeing headlines like this:

“BREAKING NEWS: Over 500 lawmakers may or may not have done something wrong.”